Specialist may help low North High grad rate

North High School — which has the lowest graduation rate and highest dropout rate of the city’s seven high schools — will hire a graduation improvement specialist.

Only 57.3 percent of the North High class of 2012 graduated in four years, compared to 72.3 percent districtwide. Superintendent Melinda J. Boone said the school is at risk of becoming a state-designated Level 4 school, which would trigger dramatic intervention.

The School Committee voted 6-1 Thursday night to create the position. The graduation improvement specialist was considered at a meeting Feb. 7, but no vote was taken.

This time, the compensation had been dropped from $45,000 to $35,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year, with the other $10,000 going to school safety measures districtwide. The money for the position was part of $455,000 in new money from the City Council.

Committee member Dianna Biancheria had opposed the position last month. She changed her mind after speaking to North staff and after the compensation was reduced, she said.

Tracy O’Connell Novick was the lone vote against the position. On Feb. 7, she said she would rather see the money go to long-under-funded elementary school libraries. (Some schools don’t have them, and only three have librarians.)

The School Committee had a broad agenda Thursday night. While North High will receive a graduation specialist, student athletes will receive free after-school snacks and — in case you hadn’t heard — the vast majority of the city’s elementary school children already get free instrumental lessons.

The committee looked at which elementary schools offer in-school, free instrument lessons. All of the elementary schools except Chandler Elementary, Flagg Street, Gates Lane, Quinsigamond, Union Hill, and West Tatnuck offer such lessons. Lessons are offered at principals’ prerogative and as their staffing budget allows, according to district officials. In addition, Woodland Academy, while not offering district-funded lessons, is working with the Neighborhood Strings Program.

Ms. Novick asked for a report on how much it would cost to add instrumental lessons to the remaining schools and in the meantime encouraged the district to brag a bit more about the music offerings. The fact that so many students get free, small group lessons, she said, is “something we ought to be shouting from the rooftops.”

The committee also learned Thursday night that the district’s nutrition and athletic departments are working together to bring the U.S. Department of Agriculture After School Snack Program to the city’s high schools. The program would provide free snacks, such as yogurt, fruits and granola to high school athletes. Seventy-three percent of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Also Thursday night, Mayor Joseph M. Petty suggested naming the gym at Columbus Park Preparatory Academy after 27-year-old Marine Sgt. William B. Soutra, Jr., who attended that school. He received the Navy Cross last year for valor in a firefight in Afghanistan.